Keep looking you will find what you want. I am in the middle of nowhere and it works for me. Nothing to do here means there are no temptations for spending (wasting?) money. I can catch a local bus and be in the mountains within 30-45 minutes so hiking is a definite option.

BTW: I went through a recruiter and she delivered exactly what she promised in every way.

I'm in a beautiful very much out of the way small city with tree lined streets, fresh clean air, beautiful blue skies, where heavy traffic is more than 10 cars in front of you, where buses run on time and cost 1 RMB, where there isn't much to do for nightlife, but the bicycling is great and the food is awesome.

The funny thing is that it's tough for them to find teachers out here. I went through Angelina's for this job. No lies and they made it work.

I got an offer for a middle school in Xuzhou but if I do some calculations it would seem the amount of potential cash that I will generate as Bachelor degreed native english speaker with 6 years of ESL experience pales in comparison.

My friend told me that 40RMB per kid per class is on the low side. 50 is average.
So: 40 kids per class multiplied by 40RMB is 1600RMB per class.
and multiply that by 20 classes a week is: 32,000RMB
and multiply that by 4 weeks in a month is: 128,000RMB a month.

Question: Is this offer (and most offers around China, ripping us all off to the absolute maximum or what? Love to read your comments.

I got an offer for a middle school in Xuzhou but if I do some calculations it would seem the amount of potential cash that I will generate as Bachelor degreed native english speaker with 6 years of ESL experience pales in comparison.

My friend told me that 40RMB per kid per class is on the low side. 50 is average.
So: 40 kids per class multiplied by 40RMB is 1600RMB per class.
and multiply that by 20 classes a week is: 32,000RMB
and multiply that by 4 weeks in a month is: 128,000RMB a month.

Question: Is this offer (and most offers around China, ripping us all off to the absolute maximum or what? Love to read your comments.

50rmb per kid sounds ok if you are doing your own small private classes
eg 6students=300rmb an hour.
But you said this is a public school job, so there's no private language school boss making money out of you.

A private school I know of sends teachers out to elementary schools to help "complement" their curriculum.
Each student pays 10rmb per lesson 40 students =400rmb
Teacher and teaching assistants wages, around 100rmb per lesson.
They do it on quite a big scale, so the profits soon add up.

Question: Is this offer (and most offers around China, ripping us all off to the absolute maximum or what? Love to read your comments.

why are you being ripped off? if you like the offer, accept it. you won't
be ripped off. if you don't like the offer, don't accept it. you won't be
ripped off. another native speaker will take the position without feeling
ripped off.

it seems english teachers be overestimating the value of "white face,
breathing, not too fat, speaks english." 8K seems to be the going
rate for 20 hours. that's the market rate. that's what you're worth.

you may, in fact, be worth even less. if enough economic refugees
drift ashore, schools may find it possible to hire native english
speakers for 4K/20hours. unpleasant, but that's how this market
works.

Was looking forward to some analysis and/or realtime experiences. Granted, it's usually the private sector that seeks to make a disproportionately sized profit as is the case everywhere, and China has no labour market regulation to prevent contracts being 'misinterpreted' to their advantage either.

Just got back from my first trip to Beijing and now I can compare it to living out in the sticks.

My whole thing is how much money can I have in my bank account at the end of the month vs. the size of the check from the school. It looks like I do better being in a smaller city than I ever could in BJ but for an interesting, and perhaps personal, reason. The pay is higher for gigs like mine in BJ and there are lots of outside jobs. Problem is that the costs are WAY higher and temptations are aplenty. Not a bar person or anything like that, but breakfast cereal from America? Check. Ballroom dance lessons and parties? Check. Interesting lectures in English? Check. Pretty much all the activities I used to enjoy back in the States are at my disposal in a big city but enjoying them means not saving. None of the above are available where I am so most of what I make goes into savings.

Something to think about when choosing a place to live. Of course, you and I are different and your mileage may vary but you get the idea.